Book Reviews: Summerland

Author: Elin Hilderbrand Well, summer is almost over, but Elin Hilderbrand’s great summer read, Summerland, can be read in any season and enjoyed.

On Nantucket Island, students are celebrating their graduation at the end of the year with a bonfire on the beach when tragedy strikes. Penny Alistair, the young teenage driver of a car that runs off the road, is dead, and her twin brother Hobby is in a coma.

Penny’s boyfriend, Jake, and Penny’s friend, Demeter, were also in the car at the time of the crash, are unhurt. But what happened that made Penny so upset when she grabbed the wheel of the car with her friends and brother inside and almost seemed to want to head into the sand dune that killed her? And how are the other students, including Penny’s friend, Demeter, going to handle the shock of the death of their star juniors – Penny is a gifted singer, Hobby, the best high school athlete the town has ever had? And will Hobby come out of the coma? Penny and Hobby’s mother, Zoe, is beside herself. And what did Penny hear at the beach that caused her to seem to want to lose control of the car? Zoe is secretly in love with Jordan Randolph, the married to Ava Jordan “Jordan Randolph”, who runs the town’s newspaper. And to complicate matters, Jordan and Zoe are lovers, and in love. Jordan demands before he takes off to Australia with his family that the paper not run a word about the accident. That is all that he can do for Zoe, except leave to take Ava and Jake back to Australia.

As the plot thickens like porridge pudding, the affect of the accident on the town, the townspeople, on Zoe and Jordan, Jake and Demeter, we all stand on edge waiting to find out what Penny heard from Demeter, her best friend, at the beach party. What did Demeter say and why did Penny react so violently? And how will Hobby cope as he comes out of the coma?

A great novel about a town and its heroes and heroines, and the face that we all face destruction in different ways – or not.